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Comments
1. Try to put your car on the small incline and set it to N, see if it rolls with ease or not. Check your fuel consumption and tell us what it is (MPG).
2. Is your parking at home on the flat surface or incline? As a general rule don't allow small children to approach your car if engine is running.
Lazy foot...?
The brake pedal is angled over toward the gas pedal such that it is very easy to apply the brakes with the right side of your foot well over the gas pedal. Apply the brakes moderately "deep" and your foot depresses the gas pedal at the same time....the car "jerks" forward.
I have had to be very mindful of this "lazy foot" situation, constantly remind myself to move my foot well over onto the brake pedal.
"..car in park...car moved forward.."
The parking gear "pawl" and gearteeth are so course that it is entirely possible to have your foot firmly on the brake, place the shifter into park, and have the car roll slightly (PANIC!!) on an incline when you release the brake to step out of the car.
"..jumping in and out of gears..."
Normal "shiftiness" during cruise in all modern day 6(10) speed transmissions.
"...with hesitation.."
Not good but also SOP, normal. 1-2 second downshift delay upon a quick return to acceleration after a brief period of coastdown. Has to do with a tranasaxle design change in favor of FE instigated back about the turn of the century.
This was one of the Reasons given to me by a Toyota Tech over at Maroone Toyota in Davie.
I would not want my worst enemy to have to endure what I endured at Maroone's Service dept.
Their Service sucks, and they make up serious failures in your car, so that you will decide to trade in your car for a New one. To top it, they have sharks in the sales floor that will offer very little money for your supposedly daying car. This dealer represents everything that is wrong in South Florida when it comes to Trust and Honesty among Toyota dealerships. I can tell that Toyota is really going down the tube with all these problems.
If you ask me, I got the best deal I cud ask for. $20,700 Out of door for Camry LE 2011 at 0% APR , 0 down, but as I said that's not the point and it is irrelevant to this discussion.
I have consulted a lawyer and she told me that to build a strong case get as many people with similar complains, file incidents with NHTSA, get some kind of data from dealership/ service centers that these problems are known but nothing can be done abt them etc etc..
"buttons973" : Can you send me a private message with your contact details ? I will get in touch with you and we can go from there.
Others : You guys can join us if you want to. It seems no point to me just complaining and posting our frustrations on this forum any more. Its time to act ..just my 2 cents...
I just received your email regarding the level of satisfaction with my 2011 Camry, I decided to send you a few lines to pass on to your managers, but most important, Toyota itself.
After driving the car now for 350 miles, and having been a prior Toyota owner (6 times), I can tell you that this Camry has eliminated my desire to own another Toyota ever again. There are many things about this car that are awful, and I can not even begin to tell you about them because they are minor in itself, but when you add them all up, they do amount to a lot. Frankly, for a new car, and a Camry, this car's design is awful. The unfortunate part is that I would have been unable to tell any of this unless I drove it for a while, and now; I am just completely destruct that I traded my Trailblazer for this car.
One of the biggest problems with this car is the automatic transmission shifting. It is awful and completely unacceptable during deceleration. Getting it into gear on a flat surface is rough and clunky. The air conditioning cooling power is marginal at best and for the first time in my life, I kick myself for not having done the research upfront because these problems appear to be a common theme with this car. Another major problem is the loudness of the car at high speeds... I drove a Trailblazer before the Camry, not exactly a car, but the Camry is even louder than the Trailblazer at the same highway speeds. I have a list of other items that I keep adding to it, and I plan to send that list to Toyota because I can't believe that they have fallen this low.
Honestly, I am going to sell this car soon, as I can not even conceive of making payments on it for the foreseeable future. I am not dissatisfied with the service I received at Ed Morse, but I have to confess that if all other Toyota models are this bad, I feel sorry for Toyota and your future sales.
Regards,
Fabian
You could do the same thing, be more careful, with your zippers, etc.
Those "soft" ratios are used for simply cruising along with light loads on the engine. But anytime a level of acceleration, even minor level, is involved, or extra engine loading, traveling uphill, towing, etc, the TC MUST be in the loop. Plus, if you should step on the brake pedal just enough to turn on the brake lights, the transmission will, MUST, unlock the TC.
10 gears to chose from in order to keep the engine RPM at the most optimal level for current speed/roadbed/travel conditions.
Like to try that, always being in the most FE correct gear ratio, with a 1o speed manual transmission..?
I thought not.
"..it will downshift to slow you down.."
No, YOU are the base cause of those downshifts.
Look at the fact, in the Prius, that the regenerative braking system is used to simulate engine compression braking during coastdown periods. Basically putting fuel BACK into the "tank" anytime the driver has no pressure on the gas pedal.
Would the Prius be just as fuel efficient absent this coastdown hybrid battery charging technique...?
NOT..!
Only if the driver used coastdown periods, "free-wheeling" coastdown techniques, highly judiously, focussing CONSTANT attention to the matter.
Your Camry uses the same technique, basically.
Doing coastdown periods the engine is COMPLETELY starved of fuel, the injectors are disabled. But now, to keep the engine RPM from dropping too low and stalling, new downspeed gear ratios must be selected, again and again, as roadspeed declines. Once roadspeed has declined to the point wherein the engine RPM cannot be held above "stall" the idle level fuel flow is restored and the transmission is quickly upshifted to remove the engine load.
If now the coastdown period continues to a full stop only then will the transmission shift into first gear.
Whole lotta SHIFTING going on.
Be aware that the above is true, or soon will be, for almost all modern day passenger cars.
I'm betting otherwise.
Have you previously owned a car with the NipponDenso, Denso US, automatic climate control system..? These systems are designed to "moderate" the level of coolness of the outlet airflow once the cabin temperature is near the temperature setpoint. If you want to get an idea of how adequate the base cooling level is then turn it to recirculate, MAX cooling, and lower the blower speed below midpoint.
On the hand if I am wrong (not likely) you can always go to Home Depot and buy a manual water flow shutoff valve to install in the engine coolant hose to the heater core. Not a bad idea in any case since that way the A/C will not be being used to COOL the engine water jacket....improved FE.
As far as the cooling, we live in South Florida where it is 90+ degrees and 100% humidity sometimes, and the Camry can barely keep up. In fact, if you are seating in the back seat you are sweating for the most part even at full blast. I finally decided to tint the windows to help the cooling a bit,
Just a side note to those that respond in defense of Toyota. I have owned 6 Toyotas prior to my Camry. It used to be that if you bought a Toyota, you were going to be satisfied. This Camry is designed poorly and I can't vouch for the sudden acceleration issues that dominated the news a few years ago with this car and, at that time, I thought people were making up the problem. However, after owning this Camry, I think maybe there was truth with that problem. All in all, I don't plan to keep this car.
and the Corolla being a 6 speed as well.
Corolla has a 4 speed automatic (older design, probably at least 10-15 years old). Corolla still has great efficiency though, and turns low rpms at highway speeds. Don't know about Tacoma.
Some people complain about the Camry 6 Auto Transmission, but most don't . I have seen some others complain about the shifting of the automatic, but most think it is fine. I have driven a Camry 6 Speed auto for a few days, and found it to be fine - before I drove it, I knew about some complaints about it, but I honestly had no complaints with it. Also, very quiet at speed, just like most professional reviewers say.
I'd take back to dealer and have them check it out, maybe drive another Camry to compare.
I'm hoping that by the time I need to buy my next daily driver that actual CVT's will be available.
I suspect the hard shifting is the result of the shiftiness. If so much shifting is expected throughout the vehicle's useful life then the shifting must be quick, solid, and firm, no slippage, frictional surface wear, allowed to "ease" into the next gear.
In my experience even an LS400's climate control system, even with dark window tint, cannot provide a good level of cooling for rear seat passengers on a HOT day in Tucson.
The ducting to the rear simply does not have enough volume, CSA, to move enough moderately cooled airflow. But there are a couple of things that will be helpful...
To cool, COOLDOWN, the entire cabin most quickly:
First and foremost, DO NOT allow the system to go into recirculate initially. It is best to leave the system in "fresh" mode initially thereby FORCING the SUPERHEATED atmosphere out of the cabin. As most owner manuals suggest it also helps to lower the rear windows for a few miles to help with this matter.
Now, after the cabin's HOT atmosphere is purged, move the mode to recirculate, bypass the system's MODERATED cooling mode via using MAX cooling, manually close the front outside, nearest the side windows, airflow ducts ("force" more cooling airflow to the rear seats), and now use the blower speed to optimize the overall cooling level.
In my '92 LS400 I find that if I use the above procedure for quick cabin cooldown on a HOT day then within 10 or 15 minutes (interior surfaces also cooled) I can put the air temperature control aspect back to auto and basically ignore the system operation thereafter.
Oh, one nice aspect of the LS400 is that I can open the engine hood, disconnect the servomotor drive from the heater core engine coolant/water flow control valve, and then tie the water valve full closed. Basically making the reheat/remix blend door movement, system airflow temperature moderation control, non-functional.
I have no idea, other than the total idiocy of NipponDenso, Denso US, engineering team, why the design of these automatic climate control systems has gone so far awry from reasonable, sensible.
You can use left foot on steep incline to hold brake and right to accelerate.
Best to reseach this in your owners manual but I beleive it needs a sharp "stab" of the brake pedal, and then release. "Stab": higher momentary brake pressure beyond just the level needed to hold the car on the incline.
Whatever the case, for a high percentage of drivers it's bad enough for them to wish they bought something else. After six months and 15,000 miles I'm one of the people who wishes I'd bought something else.
Has anyone made progress with lawyers/getting Toyota to actually care about this yet? I see posts back over a year, someone must have heard something meaningful back. The dealers here in CO "haven't heard" of this issue and want $100 each time I bring it in to tell me that I'm crazy.
During your next trip, move the transmission "+" "-" selector to where a "3" appears near the odometer while in stop and go traffic below 35mph. Selecting 3rd gear will keep the transmission from going to too high of gear.
When traffic speeds up go back to "D" or normal. I did this and it really helped with the transmission jerking. The same thing might re-train yours to start behaving correctly.
There are some people that complain of the extra and/or jerky shifting. I think most have said that it is that way to get more mpg, by design. Most people are very happy with the car, and it is working fine, so you won't get far at all with a lawsuit. I have heard same complaint with other makes of cars, due to getting more mpg with the new 6 speed auto trannies.
My 2010 is great, but it is a 6 speed manual transmission!
Getting 31.5 mpg on my commute to work, which is great! I can get 33 mpg on the highway (as the EPA says), but NOT going over 65 mpg and NOT with a strong head wind.
The thing that concerns me and my wife the most is that the car takes off like it rushes rather than a smooth acceleration, although we both press the gas pedal really gently. This mostly happens at low speeds when we are driving in the city where heavy traffic might be present. This is making both of us very concerned about our safety. We are concerned to the point that we both stopped driving the car unless we really have to, we rely on our second car which is a BMW. One other issue is that the car feels like it is going to stall when I release my foot from the acceleration. This happens at both slow speeds and high speeds. I have taken the car to the dealer three times and they said they could not reproduce the problems I am describing, although on the second visit the dealer's mechanic did feel the harsh shifting and only then did he offer to take it for a check up which he did but said he could not reproduce it.
But now to the real question is what can we do? There seems a lot of people on this forum that are complaining about very similar issues, so Toyota can't just tell us there is nothing wrong with all of these cars. Can we take legal action? What are our options? I did file a complaint with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (http://www.nhtsa.gov/) which only took a minute. I was surprised however to see that I am the only one who filed a complaint on the 2011. So I encourage every one with a problem to report it at the site I listed here, it literally takes a minute.
It is "stalling".
When you release the gas pedal at almost any speed the engine will go into coastdown mode with FULL fuel cut and sequential downshifting to prevent the engine from stalling fully. Once a speed is reached that is too low to sustain enoght engine RPM then fuel flow will be restored while at the same time the transaxle is upshifted. The car will then not downshift in 1st gear until you reach a full stop.
Note that if you by happenstance reapply pressure on the gas pedal just as that final upshift is commanded you will get a bit of hesitation in response. A little later, before the fully stopped downshift occurs, and you get the jerk, lurch.
Love the manual transmission, no issues, just got back from a 554 mile trip and averaged 32.1 mpg. 85% of the miles were highway, 70 - 75 mph, no AC use, light wind.
Issues with FWD and manual gearbox - no different than any other FWD with a manual. IF the clutch is not used properly, then clutch replacement is approx. $1,500. Other than that, no issues. I have had 150k miles on my FWD manual transmissions, and still had not had any problems with clutch or transmission. Just change the transmission oil every 60k, and make sure to use the clutch CORRECTLY.
What specific questions do you have?
Downshift to a level that engine compression braking levels are beyond the roadbed traction capability and....
VW recently introduced a technique to overcome this problem, automatically up-rev the engine if a downshift results in wheelslip/skid.
*** Not the least of these being better MPG ratings with automatics vs manuals resulting from increased lockup clutch use and FULL fuel cut during coastdown periods.